Service Design in Nordest Hightway in Tenerife

On November 28th, at the Canary Islands Innovation Fair (FI2) I had the opportunity to attend the workshop “Stop Designing Apps and Start Designing Services” given by David Martín Suarez, @miscalzoncillos designer UX at Telefónica I + D. It was a Great experience where David challenged us to solve the following problem: How could we solve the problem of traffic jams on the North Tenerife highway?”

We tackled this problem over three hours using Design Thinking techniques, wireframe processes, and agile testing based in Lean UX. Next I will summarise the steps we took before reaching a solution.

1. Diverging

The first thing we did was to conduct a collective brainstorming, where each one had to write a post-it idea, comment on its content out loud, and stick it on the wall. We had to be in synthesis, and address various aspects related to the given problem.

2. Emerging

Once we had brought together a few issues related to the problem, we began to group the various issues that emerged in the first phase of brainstorming – aspects related to driving, traffic jams, micro-timings, and driving stress. All related to the driving experience and linked to the given topic.

3. Translate ideas into questions

The third step was to convert the selected objects into verbalised “sentences” as possible problems to be solved. How could we organise our time better when going to work? How could we bring the work closer to the worker? How could we make better use of public transport? How could drivers take advantage of the time spent in their vehicles? How can we inform drivers of traffic forecasts? All of these questions would be present to help us begin developing our future products.

4. Converger: Groups and product concept development

There were about 12 people attending, so David divided us into four groups of 3 people. Once we had the questions, we started to build the answers. We were organized into groups of three people, and each group began to discuss a proposal that would try to cover at least a couple of the “Problems” raised in the creative process. Once the proposal was debated we began to shape it through paper prototypes.

5. Repeat testing

Once we arrived at the first prototypes, we had time to show our solution to the other groups and obtain feedback and propositions for improvements to our initial idea, using our prototypes. A first tryout resulted in giving us an improved product.

6. Introduce the app: Jobstravels

Finally we presented our proposal: We would create a community of people motivated to share small micro-buses, that would be agreed through a web application, who would receive discounts for using the micro-buses. These micro-buses would pick them up at home and leave them in similar areas. In this way we could reduce part of the traffic congestion without giving up the comfort offered by the car. This same application would offer the possibility of arranging for people to travel together in case the micro-bus service could not meet the needs of these people.

It has been a tremendously rewarding experience. We have learned a lot and we have ended up feeling that all the effort has paid off thanks to the creative solutions achieved through the Design Thinking process. Thanks, David!!